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Article published January 30, 2013

Put gun issue to rest

GG
Vince Crifaci Butler

Guns are all that we’ve been hearing about lately on the news.News stories focus on the fact that a person had a gun in his possession when he was involved in an incident, but ignore the person’s mental state.A child brings a toy gun to school. He or she gets suspended, and the top story is that the child had a gun.The emphasis is on “gun,” not “toy gun.”The media have an agenda here. It is all about taking our right to bear arms to the highest level ever.Since the shooting of the children in Connecticut, there has been an all-out assault on guns. Now, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., again is proposing an assault weapons ban.The old bill was all about looks, not the capabilities of particular guns. If a gun looked military, it was deemed an assault weapon.I can take an ordinary hunting rifle and buy separately all the items needed to make that gun look like a military weapon. By doing that, did I now change the hunting rifle to a military rifle?No, I made the rifle look like one. It still fires the same. It still holds the same amount of shells. It most likely can kill a deer, as it was designed to do.So, what’s the big deal here? This country was founded by people with guns. It will continue to be a country of people with guns.Therefore, stop with the gun issue.